Francis Eppes Professor Roy Baumeister, a renowned social
psychologist, has conducted several experiments to learn how
satisfaction influences motivation.

FSU News

No satisfaction zaps motivation, FSU psychologist says

By Jill Elish

You can't always get what you want, as the song goes, but if a
Florida State University researcher's new theory on motivation holds
true, you may not want it anymore anyway.

Roy Baumeister

Francis Eppes Professor Roy Baumeister, a renowned social
psychologist, has conducted several experiments to learn how
satisfaction influences motivation. Baumeister will present his
theory at the annual convention of the Association for Psychological
Science being held May 24-27 in Washington, D.C.

At the heart of Baumeister's theory is the idea that humans adapt to
want what they can get. It goes something like this: When we want
something and get it, the subsequent feeling of satisfaction
reinforces and increases the strength of that desire when it
returns. Conversely, chronically unsatisfied desires may diminish
the intensity of motivation.

"Obviously, we want much that we cannot get, but gradually we want
these things a little less," Baumeister said. "It's the 'getting'
that begets wanting."

In one experiment, participants were asked to work a crossword
puzzle or play a hand-held video game, and in another, participants
were asked to take 15-minute naps on four out of eight days. In a
third experiment, participants were asked to read the top news
stories on a popular Web site for two weeks. The follow-up to the
experiments showed that getting people to engage in an activity led
them to want to perform the activity more over time.

This theory of motivation may even explain certain addictive
behavior, Baumeister said.

"Addiction may be typical of many motivations, and, in fact, may be
less a special case than a common pattern," Baumeister said. "In
addiction, getting leads to more wanting. One example is alcohol:
Most people can live without it before they discover it, and getting
pleasure from it does increase the wanting. Why this process stops
short of all-out addiction for some people and not others we don't
know."

The second part of Baumeister's theory holds that social and
cultural factors may shape motivation more strongly when the
motivation is weak. The best example of this, according to
Baumeister, is that female sexuality is more affected than male
sexuality by social and cultural factors because the female sex
drive is less intense. By contrast, women have a stronger desire to
take care of children, most people believe, and the mother role
changes far less with social and cultural factors than the father
role.

The study of motivation is important because psychology boils down
to two things: wanting and thinking. Most research in recent decades
has focused on the thinking component, cognition, while little
attention has been paid to the wanting component, or motivation,
according to Baumeister.

Understanding what motivates people could eventually help
psychologists more effectively treat certain patients, Baumeister
said.